Hey, you, get your pants off the ground

This is where it begins, my friends. This is the
moment that future generations will look back on and say, “From such humble
beginnings, a cultural counter-revolution was born. Amazing.”

But just as a powder keg needs a fuse and a fuse
needs a match and a match needs a combination of phosphorus or phosphorus
sesquisulfide as the active ingredient and gelatin as a binder and then,
ultimately, friction to light it afire (thank you Wikipedia), so too did
millions upon millions of belt-wearing, underwear-fearing grownups need Larry
Platt.

Allow me to introduce Platt to those of you who don’t
have teenage daughters and thus probably don’t watch “American Idol” and thus aren’t
likely to know who Platt is.

He is a 62-year-old man from East Atlanta, Georgia
who has a distinguished past as an activist in the civil rights movement. Last week, though, he struck a blow for
another kind of freedom – freedom from nonsensical irritation – by appearing on
“American Idol” and performing his song called “Pants on the Ground.”

It goes something like this: “Pants on the ground, pants
on the ground/ Lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground! With the gold
in your mouth, hat turned sideways, pants hit the ground, call yourself a cool
cat/ Lookin' like a fool, walking downtown with your pants on the ground/Get it
up! Hey, get your pants off the ground!”

The song struck an immediate chord. For the past
week, Platt’s been a star across the Internet. He’s all over YouTube. He has
“favorites” pages on Facebook. He was on “The View.” Jimmy Fallon spoofed him.

Some people think Platt will be an overnight
sensation, here and gone quickly like William “She Bangs!” Hung before him.

But I think not. I think Platt has hit a national
nerve. I think people are ready for an end – pun intended - to the droopy pants
trend. It began more than a decade ago, and adults, in particular, grin and
bore it, figuring it would peter out and become a source of embarrassment, as
feathered hair and bell-bottom jeans became for my generation.

But no such thing has happened. Generation after
generation of young men has adopted some variety of this look. Some walk around
with the waist of their pants below their cheeks, which seems to violate some
law of physics. (How do they keep
them from falling to their ankles? Duct tape?) Others, like my teenage son,
shove their jeans down below their hips to the point that you, if you care to
look, can see the band of his underwear.

Either way, it’s such a cultural low point that I
think many of us have been secretly yearning for a hero, someone to stand up
and say, “You look like fools! Stop it!”

Teens seem to like Platt’s song as much as parents.
So maybe this is it. Maybe this is what will finally drive the stake into the heart
of half-mast pants.

If it is, then I think Mr. Platt ought to have a
statue erected in his honor.